Four Times A Lady (band!fic)
Four Times A Lady
band!fic, Teddy/CL
Friendships last you; heartbreaks not always.
four times a lady
Three little birds sat by my window
And they told me I don't need to worry.
Corrine Bailey Rae; Put Your Records On
They don’t talk about it when Chaerin comes back late, the rain soaked in her hair and jacket, her head bowed as she slips out of her shoes. Dara is lying on the living room couch as she holds on to TamTam, the disfigured purple rabbit a substitute comfort in the absence of their leader the past few hours. The rain beats heavily against the windows, but Dara remains quiet as Chaerin stumbles about in the darkness before disappearing into the bathroom down the hallway. She lifts her head blearily and tries to listen to Chaerin’s movements past the bathroom door. All she hears is the rain against glass.
It could have a few minutes or an hour, Dara doesn’t know. She wakes up briefly from a doze when she feels the softness of a duvet over her shoulder, TamTam tucked safely back against her chest. “Got space for one more?” Chaerin’s whisper is hoarse.
Dara knows better than to answer, only shifts without opening her eyes. Chaerin slips under the duvet and buries her head into Dara’s back.
“Where were you?” Dara mumbles, half asleep. In the back of her head she thinks she might know the answer, but she wants to hear it from Chaerin herself. The leader’s breaths are shallow, quiet. Chaerin doesn’t answer, or maybe she does, but Dara doesn’t hear her in her sleep.
Minji rolls her shoulder, the familiar space of the room readying her for the toil of practice that will come with the next few hours. The stereo is blasting, Dara randomly switching songs from Gummy to 1TYM to Big Bang and proceeding to make a fool out of herself in front of the mirror. Chaerin is sitting by the window, watching the cityscape in silence. There’s still a drizzle outside, a remnant of the storm the night before. Minji had been reluctant to leave the warmth of her bed that morning, and she’d woken up to find herself alone in the room she shared with her 2NE1 unnies.
Then she remembered: Bom had gone home the night before to spend time with her mother. Dara was snoring away in the living room, TamTam on the floor. Minji found Chaerin in the kitchen making breakfast. The older girl had smiled at her then - “good morning,” she’d said. Cheerfully.
Nobody here is cheerful in the mornings - not in this girl group. But Chaerin continued with her merriness, tackling Dara to wake her up and shrieking for Minji to finish her breakfast. Until they got into the car, and then Chaerin sank into a moody silence, her face hidden by the hood of her Big Bang sweater.
And now. Minji pauses in her stretching then to study the leader - slim, tomboyish Chaerin, the strength of the group and the force behind their climb to the top. Sitting there now, the drops of water trailing down the dim glass, Chaerin is a picture of vulnerability. How odd, Minji thinks, that she’s never realized how soft Chaerin’s features are, the leader’s almost plain face usually unnoticed behind a charismatic mask.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry I’m late - “
The hollow in Chaerin’s expression disappears as she turns to see Bom run in, hair windblown and cheeks flushed, windbreaker damp from the bad weather.
“About time,” she says curtly.
Dara stops dancing then, surprise in the ‘o’ of her mouth. Bom blinks, too breathless to reply. Minji straightens, reaches out to touch Chaerin’s shoulder, but Chaerin is in Bom’s face now, and Minji has never seen Chaerin so angry -
“Is this how it is, Bom-unni? Are we are so low on your priorities list that you would come late every single time for practice?”
Bom looks almost as though she’d been slapped. “I - “ she begins, but Chaerin interrupts her, quick and cutting.
“You’re the oldest here,” she says, and there’s bitterness in her voice now - “and therefore you should know better, isn’t that so? Then why am I still here earlier than you, training more than you, leading you, if I’m younger than you are? What has age got to do - what has age got to do with - “
Chaerin’s fists are clenched, so tight her knuckles are paling, and there is a horrible, drawn out silence before Dara’s hand pulls gently at the other girl’s arm -
“Chaerin-ah,” she calls softly, her sweet voice low.
Bom barely steps aside in time for Chaerin to storm out of the practice room, the door slamming so hard behind her that it swings back open again. Dara gives Minji a troubled glance before following in Chaerin’s footsteps, her trainers squeaking against the wooden flooring as she hurries after the leader. Daesung’s clear voice rings out in the room, an odd sort of background noise to this situation. Bom’s lashes are wet with tears, and she looks to Minji, ashamed and shaking a little because 2NE1 has never fought, Minji realizes as her heart beats painfully quickly in her chest -
“That was my fault,” Bom manages, and Minji’s hand is tight in Bom’s own as she looks at her unni.
“What’s… what’s wrong with Chaerin-unni?” she asks, because she’s never seen anything quite like it, Chaerin bursting out like that, and the expression in Dara’s eyes tells Minji that there is more to this than she knows. Bom shakes her head as she wipes her eyes.
“I think...” her voice is muffled behind her hands, “Minji-ah. I think it’s about Teddy.”
“Teddy?” Minji doesn’t quite register the significance of this at first, but Bom is still wiping her eyes and it’s beginning to feel like the heartbreak they like to sing about in their songs.
Minji isn’t sure she understands.
Jiyong once said to Bom that he doesn’t really care that Teddy and Chaerin are going out, “as long as they come back with material I can work with”. Rap, dance, pop, whatever, as long as it's music.
“What if they don’t work out?” she’d mumbled as he tapped his pen to his notepad, thinking, humming, composing. He glanced at her, half amused.
“Then they better write me some really good love songs.”
Practice goes on because no matter what, they have to get the routines down. Chaerin doesn’t say anything more to Bom, and they immerse themselves in the music, dancing until their choreography comes together (but they can do better than this, can always do better). The lack of their usual camaraderie in the air makes the hours stretch on, and by the time they make it back to the apartment nobody is talking at all.
Chaerin wakes up from her nap a few hours later to the delicious smell of beef stew. Her shoulders ache from her position on the couch, and TamTam stares up at her, almost reproachfully. Chaerin holds the rabbit to her and lays there for a few more minutes, hearing Bom hum to herself in the kitchen; Dara sing in the shower down the hallway; Minji switch channels just across from her. This is normal, she thinks, and she feels a heaviness in her chest that threatens to choke her. Everything’s normal.
It’s Dara who sees her crying into the fabric of TamTam’s body, and Bom who moves in to gather her in her arms. Minji’s hand is in hers, tender even as she holds on firmly. Dara’s own tears wet Chaerin’s sweater, and Chaerin has to laugh at this. It’s wrong, she thinks with a tremble in her breath, for the mothers of TamTam to be as weak as this.
“Silly Chaerin,” Bom says softly, cradling her. She’s always been Bom’s favourite, Chaerin knows, and her fingers curl into Bom’s shirt and she wants to keep apologizing, but Bom only pats her gently on the back of her head and Chaerin is crying all over again.
In retrospect, Chaerin isn’t exactly sure what she expected out of this. It had been a perfect few months, living and breathing in his arms. He could try and learn to love her, he'd said in the beginning. Maybe it was out of pity. Age was one excuse; the only excuse she could think of for the rejection because the alternative was just too hard to bear. Chaerin didn't want to know, didn't want to think about it. At least you tried, she told him, just before she walked out. At least you tried - at least we had this for awhile, even if…
And she was smiling even as her heart bled in her chest, and it’s okay, she kept telling herself. It’s okay. But until that moment when she was sobbing into Bom’s embrace, Dara murmuring comfort into her ear and Minji stroking gently at her hair, it hadn’t been okay. My girls, Chaerin remembers thinking, as they held her, as she held TamTam.
My girls.
“Is it quality?” Jiyong asks seriously, when Chaerin walks into the recording studio one late afternoon. Teddy grins at her and Chaerin feels her heart bang in her chest as it always does, because it’s Teddy and he was her ideal (still is, probably always will be).
“Quality,” she confirms, surprised by the confidence in her voice. “The other girls helped me write it.”
Dara’s head pokes into the room. “Is it any good?” she squeaks.
“Since when are you a songwriter?” Teddy demands good-naturedly. Jiyong is studying the lyrics, fingers tapping against his knee as his lips pull into a quirk of sorts -
“So is it any good?” Minji has popped in and jumped on Chaerin, Bom at her heels. Jiyong grins at them, and Chaerin stands there, unconsciously rubbing her arm as Teddy swipes the song sheet from Jiyong to have a look.
“It’s up to Teddy-hyung,” Jiyong says, but his eyes are crinkling.
Teddy nods slowly as he studies the lyrics, raising his eyebrows and smiling at the 2NE1 girls. “You have a title for this?”
“Not yet,” Dara says brightly, draping herself over Chaerin’s shoulders. “Though maybe something about friendship or…”
“Always having each others’ backs…”
“Late night chats and beef stew…”
“We’ll figure that out later,” Chaerin says then, suppressing an affectionate smile as Bom rests her head against her own. “…What do you think?”
“Better than a love song,” Jiyong says.
band!fic, Teddy/CL
Friendships last you; heartbreaks not always.
four times a lady
Three little birds sat by my window
And they told me I don't need to worry.
Corrine Bailey Rae; Put Your Records On
They don’t talk about it when Chaerin comes back late, the rain soaked in her hair and jacket, her head bowed as she slips out of her shoes. Dara is lying on the living room couch as she holds on to TamTam, the disfigured purple rabbit a substitute comfort in the absence of their leader the past few hours. The rain beats heavily against the windows, but Dara remains quiet as Chaerin stumbles about in the darkness before disappearing into the bathroom down the hallway. She lifts her head blearily and tries to listen to Chaerin’s movements past the bathroom door. All she hears is the rain against glass.
It could have a few minutes or an hour, Dara doesn’t know. She wakes up briefly from a doze when she feels the softness of a duvet over her shoulder, TamTam tucked safely back against her chest. “Got space for one more?” Chaerin’s whisper is hoarse.
Dara knows better than to answer, only shifts without opening her eyes. Chaerin slips under the duvet and buries her head into Dara’s back.
“Where were you?” Dara mumbles, half asleep. In the back of her head she thinks she might know the answer, but she wants to hear it from Chaerin herself. The leader’s breaths are shallow, quiet. Chaerin doesn’t answer, or maybe she does, but Dara doesn’t hear her in her sleep.
Minji rolls her shoulder, the familiar space of the room readying her for the toil of practice that will come with the next few hours. The stereo is blasting, Dara randomly switching songs from Gummy to 1TYM to Big Bang and proceeding to make a fool out of herself in front of the mirror. Chaerin is sitting by the window, watching the cityscape in silence. There’s still a drizzle outside, a remnant of the storm the night before. Minji had been reluctant to leave the warmth of her bed that morning, and she’d woken up to find herself alone in the room she shared with her 2NE1 unnies.
Then she remembered: Bom had gone home the night before to spend time with her mother. Dara was snoring away in the living room, TamTam on the floor. Minji found Chaerin in the kitchen making breakfast. The older girl had smiled at her then - “good morning,” she’d said. Cheerfully.
Nobody here is cheerful in the mornings - not in this girl group. But Chaerin continued with her merriness, tackling Dara to wake her up and shrieking for Minji to finish her breakfast. Until they got into the car, and then Chaerin sank into a moody silence, her face hidden by the hood of her Big Bang sweater.
And now. Minji pauses in her stretching then to study the leader - slim, tomboyish Chaerin, the strength of the group and the force behind their climb to the top. Sitting there now, the drops of water trailing down the dim glass, Chaerin is a picture of vulnerability. How odd, Minji thinks, that she’s never realized how soft Chaerin’s features are, the leader’s almost plain face usually unnoticed behind a charismatic mask.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry I’m late - “
The hollow in Chaerin’s expression disappears as she turns to see Bom run in, hair windblown and cheeks flushed, windbreaker damp from the bad weather.
“About time,” she says curtly.
Dara stops dancing then, surprise in the ‘o’ of her mouth. Bom blinks, too breathless to reply. Minji straightens, reaches out to touch Chaerin’s shoulder, but Chaerin is in Bom’s face now, and Minji has never seen Chaerin so angry -
“Is this how it is, Bom-unni? Are we are so low on your priorities list that you would come late every single time for practice?”
Bom looks almost as though she’d been slapped. “I - “ she begins, but Chaerin interrupts her, quick and cutting.
“You’re the oldest here,” she says, and there’s bitterness in her voice now - “and therefore you should know better, isn’t that so? Then why am I still here earlier than you, training more than you, leading you, if I’m younger than you are? What has age got to do - what has age got to do with - “
Chaerin’s fists are clenched, so tight her knuckles are paling, and there is a horrible, drawn out silence before Dara’s hand pulls gently at the other girl’s arm -
“Chaerin-ah,” she calls softly, her sweet voice low.
Bom barely steps aside in time for Chaerin to storm out of the practice room, the door slamming so hard behind her that it swings back open again. Dara gives Minji a troubled glance before following in Chaerin’s footsteps, her trainers squeaking against the wooden flooring as she hurries after the leader. Daesung’s clear voice rings out in the room, an odd sort of background noise to this situation. Bom’s lashes are wet with tears, and she looks to Minji, ashamed and shaking a little because 2NE1 has never fought, Minji realizes as her heart beats painfully quickly in her chest -
“That was my fault,” Bom manages, and Minji’s hand is tight in Bom’s own as she looks at her unni.
“What’s… what’s wrong with Chaerin-unni?” she asks, because she’s never seen anything quite like it, Chaerin bursting out like that, and the expression in Dara’s eyes tells Minji that there is more to this than she knows. Bom shakes her head as she wipes her eyes.
“I think...” her voice is muffled behind her hands, “Minji-ah. I think it’s about Teddy.”
“Teddy?” Minji doesn’t quite register the significance of this at first, but Bom is still wiping her eyes and it’s beginning to feel like the heartbreak they like to sing about in their songs.
Minji isn’t sure she understands.
Jiyong once said to Bom that he doesn’t really care that Teddy and Chaerin are going out, “as long as they come back with material I can work with”. Rap, dance, pop, whatever, as long as it's music.
“What if they don’t work out?” she’d mumbled as he tapped his pen to his notepad, thinking, humming, composing. He glanced at her, half amused.
“Then they better write me some really good love songs.”
Practice goes on because no matter what, they have to get the routines down. Chaerin doesn’t say anything more to Bom, and they immerse themselves in the music, dancing until their choreography comes together (but they can do better than this, can always do better). The lack of their usual camaraderie in the air makes the hours stretch on, and by the time they make it back to the apartment nobody is talking at all.
Chaerin wakes up from her nap a few hours later to the delicious smell of beef stew. Her shoulders ache from her position on the couch, and TamTam stares up at her, almost reproachfully. Chaerin holds the rabbit to her and lays there for a few more minutes, hearing Bom hum to herself in the kitchen; Dara sing in the shower down the hallway; Minji switch channels just across from her. This is normal, she thinks, and she feels a heaviness in her chest that threatens to choke her. Everything’s normal.
It’s Dara who sees her crying into the fabric of TamTam’s body, and Bom who moves in to gather her in her arms. Minji’s hand is in hers, tender even as she holds on firmly. Dara’s own tears wet Chaerin’s sweater, and Chaerin has to laugh at this. It’s wrong, she thinks with a tremble in her breath, for the mothers of TamTam to be as weak as this.
“Silly Chaerin,” Bom says softly, cradling her. She’s always been Bom’s favourite, Chaerin knows, and her fingers curl into Bom’s shirt and she wants to keep apologizing, but Bom only pats her gently on the back of her head and Chaerin is crying all over again.
In retrospect, Chaerin isn’t exactly sure what she expected out of this. It had been a perfect few months, living and breathing in his arms. He could try and learn to love her, he'd said in the beginning. Maybe it was out of pity. Age was one excuse; the only excuse she could think of for the rejection because the alternative was just too hard to bear. Chaerin didn't want to know, didn't want to think about it. At least you tried, she told him, just before she walked out. At least you tried - at least we had this for awhile, even if…
And she was smiling even as her heart bled in her chest, and it’s okay, she kept telling herself. It’s okay. But until that moment when she was sobbing into Bom’s embrace, Dara murmuring comfort into her ear and Minji stroking gently at her hair, it hadn’t been okay. My girls, Chaerin remembers thinking, as they held her, as she held TamTam.
My girls.
“Is it quality?” Jiyong asks seriously, when Chaerin walks into the recording studio one late afternoon. Teddy grins at her and Chaerin feels her heart bang in her chest as it always does, because it’s Teddy and he was her ideal (still is, probably always will be).
“Quality,” she confirms, surprised by the confidence in her voice. “The other girls helped me write it.”
Dara’s head pokes into the room. “Is it any good?” she squeaks.
“Since when are you a songwriter?” Teddy demands good-naturedly. Jiyong is studying the lyrics, fingers tapping against his knee as his lips pull into a quirk of sorts -
“So is it any good?” Minji has popped in and jumped on Chaerin, Bom at her heels. Jiyong grins at them, and Chaerin stands there, unconsciously rubbing her arm as Teddy swipes the song sheet from Jiyong to have a look.
“It’s up to Teddy-hyung,” Jiyong says, but his eyes are crinkling.
Teddy nods slowly as he studies the lyrics, raising his eyebrows and smiling at the 2NE1 girls. “You have a title for this?”
“Not yet,” Dara says brightly, draping herself over Chaerin’s shoulders. “Though maybe something about friendship or…”
“Always having each others’ backs…”
“Late night chats and beef stew…”
“We’ll figure that out later,” Chaerin says then, suppressing an affectionate smile as Bom rests her head against her own. “…What do you think?”
“Better than a love song,” Jiyong says.